ICYMI: More Wins for Workers Under President Biden

President Biden is delivering on his promise to be the most pro-worker and pro-union president in American history. As of today, his American Rescue Plan has protected the pensions of one million workers and retirees, who faced benefit cuts through no fault of their own. Also this week, the Biden-Harris Administration announced final rules implementing the first-of-its-kind prevailing wage and registered apprenticeship provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which will help ensure clean energy jobs are good-paying union jobs. And a new report from the Center for American Progress found that 74% of workers voted in favor of a union so far this year—the highest rate in 15 years. The President will keep fighting to defend the right of workers to organize—and for Scranton, not Park Avenue.

Read more below:

AP News: Democrats put a spotlight on more than 1 million pensions saved under a 2021 law
[Fatima Hussein, 6/21/24]

As of Friday, the White House said, more than 1 million union workers and retirees' pensions will have been saved by the Butch Lewis Act, which became law in the spring of 2021.

The law, enacted as part of President Joe Biden's American Rescue Plan, will ultimately stop cuts to the retirement benefits of 2 million workers and retirees across the country.

It is named after a retired Ohio trucker and Teamsters union leader who spent the last years of his life fighting to prevent massive cuts to the Teamsters' Central States Pension Fund. […]

Biden administration officials, including senior adviser Gene Sperling, and a group of union workers with the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union were in Hershey, Pennsylvania, with Sen. Bob Casey on Friday to put a spotlight on the law. […]

"Whether it is Social Security, Medicare, or pensions, workers who earn a dignified retirement through decades of hard work and sacrifice should never see their benefits cut due to broken promises or policies that favor the wealthy over working families," Biden said in a statement. […]

Rita Lewis, Butch Lewis' widow, told The Associated Press that before the act passed, union retirees she knew "were talking about having to sell their house and live with their kids." […]

"President Biden and the Democrats held true to their word when they said they would restore our pensions," she said.

Business Insider: There's a huge pay raise on the way for clean energy workers
[Juliana Kaplan, 6/18/24]

The Biden administration wants to ensure businesses are paying their clean energy workers well — and it's using a new tax break to push for it.

The Treasury Department, alongside the Internal Revenue Service, announced a final rule on Tuesday that stipulates how clean energy projects can get their tax break from the Inflation Reduction Act multiplied by five by paying workers more.

"No developer will leave that money on the table," John Podesta, Senior Advisor to the President for International Climate Policy, told reporters.

To qualify, projects have to hire registered apprentices, who are paid for their work and earn credentials while doing it, and pay the prevailing wage to their workers, a level of minimum pay generally set for workers on government contracts. While prevailing wage has "long applied" to federal projects, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, this is the first time it's been applied to clean energy tax incentives.

"This is a major step to put American workers at the center of the clean energy economy. It will help to attract and strengthen a skilled workforce in partnership with our nation's labor unions and private sector companies, and it'll help make sure this workforce is well paid," Yellen said in a call with reporters.

Axios: Workers are voting to join unions at record high rates
[Emily Peck, 6/20/24]

Workers are voting to join unions at the highest rate in 15 years, finds an analysis out this morning from the progressive Center for American Progress.

Why it matters: It's a reflection of increased grassroots momentum behind organizing — helped along by a strongly pro-worker National Labor Relations Board, under Biden appointee Jennifer Abruzzo.

Zoom in: Workers voted in favor of a union 74% of the time this year (through April) — a jump from 2019 when it was 69%.

• In 2023, there were 1,777 union elections — the highest number since 2010, when there were 1,942.

Zoom out: The NLRB has streamlined the rules around union elections — cutting the time between petition and voting.

• The agency also withdrew a Trump-era proposal that would have excluded private college and university student workers from unionizing — driving a wave of graduate student organizing.